Nothing Ethnic, Maybe some Chicken, Mostly Nessa

I love message boards. I love support that I get at message boards… I love attention I get at message boards. At small message boards such as South Beach Friends I’ve made AWESOME long term REAL friends. Many of them I’ve met in person. That kind of board is special. Your friends, know you, love you, care about you, do NOT blow smoke up your butt…they call it like they see it. And that’s a good thing. Having friends in real life and/or online who tell you WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR vs. what you WANT to hear are good. It may hurt but it’s important.

South Beach Friends started out as a diet support board. It’s morphed into a bunch of friends hanging out and speaking their minds… and I love that.

But it’s still about being healthy and sane… and my current situation is NOT sane. NOT at all. And I know this. So what is it I need for support right now? I am in a long distance relationship. I HATE it. It’s killing us. BOTH of us. WE are so freaking sleep deprived it’s NOT funny. it’s as if we need to be on the phone half the night… as if that makes being apart better… but does it?

We become non-functional in the important parts of our day. Hell I’m non-functional now just thinking of him… I worry about Jim, he worries about me, phone calls are a lousy substitue for hugs… so I seek others who GET it. Well at South Beach Friends, there are no LDRs going on… so I look for other message boards.. but what do I need support for?

It’s:

1. A long distance relationship

2. An age gap relationship because I am 13+ years older than Jim

3. A relationship that contributed to the breakup of my marriage (NOT the cause but the catalyst)

4. Dominant personalities trying to find their way

5. addictive personalities trying to find their way

so tell me where is the message board for Long Distance Cougars…. etc etc etc….

Not going to make a long story short here so settle down for the long haul.

THIS is my current favorite picture of Jim it was taken a few years back but I think he has a painting in a closet somewhere that’s aging for him. honest he’s over 18 by 20 years! he’ll be 38 in June!

I will skip all the stuff about how I’ve known Jim since August 2009… WE first had some serious interaction in August 2010 at a gaming convention. I’m an outrageous flirt… and with my then-husband’s permission I was rather assertive in my desires of Jim. Jim even questioned him as to whether or not I was “permitted” this dalliance and was told I was… Sadly nothing came of it back in August.

Fast forward to the beginning of November 2010 at yet ANOTHER gaming con…. I ramped up the flirting to OVER the TOP… I even posted in private that I was so over the top that I probably got myself in trouble with “flirty guy” as I referred to him then and there… He actually sent me a text asking to talk to me… I tossed and turned all night thinking he was going to “slap my hand’ and tell me how inappropriate I was; but no, the truth was, I was OUT there enough to FINALLY CATCH his attention.. and I’m rather glad I did.

So in the beginning of November we decided to start this “relationship”. I was NOT cheating or lying as my husband knew I was spending time with Jim. What I did not share was how deeply my feelings for this man were growing on a daily basis. I NEVER meant to care for him the way I do… nor did I ever expect him to care about me back… but we do. And here we sit.

WE started out slowly A short visit in early December.. then nothing for four weeks… a visit in early January showed that we continued to enjoy being together. That one lasted a bit longer but still not even 24 hours. Then came the “command performance” as I call it. A visit two weeks later on January 22nd still only a 23 hour stay… but this visit was pivotal for me. This was the visit where I realized just how important this man was becoming to me… and it scared me. I SHOULD have run then. But I could not. or would not is more accurate.

WE made the conscious choice to pursue a relationship. IT was NOT the reason my marriage broke up. It was a catalyst towards the end of something that should be over. Being with Jim has given me the strength and courage to do what I needed to do.. NOT stop Brian when he walked out this last time.

WE had another visit in February our first full weekend.. two nights… Friday-Sunday and I loved it so much I did it again the NEXT weekend… and by then I was done for. HOOKED.

We talked and I realized what was going on for me and I expressed my desire to see him more than once a month. We have currently settled on every other weekend but I do not know how long that will last.. there are days it’s all I can do to NOT get in the car and make the 2 hour trek….

My husband moved out and we just ran full speed ahead into trying to see what we have. And yes I’m glad we are trying this on to see how it fits. It’s NOT easy. Long distance relationships are HARD. We are both suffering from severe lack of sleep on a regular basis. My car knows the route so well I don’t even have to pay attention much. I have the trip up 95 down to a science. 1 hour 15 minutes to the Delaware Welcome Center (DWC) which puts me 45 minutes from Jim’s front door. Baring traffic of course. The Delaware Toll Plaza is the bane of my existence. I hope the construction is done soon…. it’s so bad I’m getting an EZ Pass again..

While we live 2 freaking hours apart (and that’s killing me more and more)… We are in agreement that we are a couple now. Jim makes me smile. He pushes me to be the best person I can be and yet nurtures me when I need to be coddled and babied. He is independent enough to take care of himself and yet lets (and needs) me (to) take care of him JUST enough…

I have no idea where we will go. I have no idea how long we will walk towards that goal. I do know that adding a new partner to my life when my old partner is still in the picture was harder than I ever imagined. Lots of tears were shed. Feelings hurt, hearts broken. Friends lost and confused by this don’t know what to say or who to say it to. AND it’s compounded by the fact that MY friends are folks that KNOW Jim…

But now that it’s just the two of us… and I can be open about it… I want to shout to the world that this man is mine. And I am his.

I’m so shallow. I bought new jeans on Saturday. I spent way more than I normally do on jeans. I wonder if it’s because they were a size 6 or if they fit so well and feel so good… and look SO GREAT.

Yes I’ve worn them two days in a row now. I will probably wear them Friday too! OMG I love them. I feel SO GREAT in them. I think I”m attractive in them. Maybe I’m not but it makes me feel like I am so I act like I am and I walk tall and fast. I think men are staring at my ass now… these jeans fit my thighs and my ass… there is no bagginess there. and I can and do wear BOOT with them…

Wow. Today is one year to the day I had Roux-En-Y (RNY) surgery. A year. How the hell did that happen??? It’s been a wild Ride.

I have to go back and read journal entries to get all the details right. Let’s talk about the here and now for a second. Life is good. I walk, I do yoga regularly, I can lift weights as needed and I have energy and stamina like I did not before. I can climb a flight of steps and not be out of breath.

I weighed 253 on my scale the morning of surgery. This morning I weighed 160.8 not quite to my goal but less than ten pounds away from it! So I go back and I read stuff to figure this out.. I remember HATING the pre-surgery weight loss requirements. Gained 6 gained 4 stayed the same lost 4 net gain of six pounds… really sad. And it made me worry that I’d be a failure at it after WLS.

There are times I still FEEL like a failure… I mean here I am at a year out and NOT AT MY GOAL! I’m at my doctor’s goal… but not mine. What does that say to me or about me? I remember waiting waiting waiting… Waiting for the insurance to approve me… scared they would not… of course they did..

On July 7, 2009 I said this : …oy will I ever be thin? I have been eating fairly well. I know i need to exercise but everything hurts. the tops of my feet hurt, my muscles are cramping, I’m out of breath constantly. If i don’t lose weight I can’t have WLS so I can lose weight… what a catch 22, if i could lose weight would I need WLS? What strikes me about this post is not the part about losing weight, it’s the part about the exercise… EVERYTHING hurts… now I work out… hard… at least 3 days a week! And I like it. A LOT!

So I had surgery and I did fine. I stayed one night in the hospital and came home. I had nausea. I had an allergy to the stuff they paint on you to make steri strips stick… I felt crummy. I never had regret. And once all that cleared up I healed pretty quickly. I was 253 on my scale the morning of surgery. And while I’ve kept a spread sheet of monthly weigh in results since surgery I don’t go all the way back to the beginning with the daily ones. Or even the weekly ones.

I didn’t start keeping track till mid December for some reason.

I do have notes like this:

12/7/09 down 33 pounds in 11 weeks

3/24/10 down 63 pounds in 6 months

By December I was working out regularly I’ve been consistently faithful with my supplements and I was pristine with my food for the first six months.

At 5 months out, I wrote a long piece and in it I talked about wanting to weigh 150 or even 146. I was just under 200 at 197.5 or so. I still have a goal of 151 but I doubt I’ll ever see 146 without plastic surgery. My skin is horrible. I have a lot of it. And it has a lot of subcutaneous fat.

It’s been an interesting journey and I’m sure it’s not over. I have made some good friends. I have good times. I feel good. I still weigh 300 pounds in the matrix… (you know how they say the way you see yourself in your mind is how you look in the matrix it’s residual self image and it’s a perfect way to describe how formerly fat people see themselves)

So yesterday in the shower, I noticed how I can feel my bones when I bathe. I put my leg up to wash and there are curves, bones, and hollows that weren’t there a year ago.

Shopping is fun now not tiring; of course getting clothes that fit is interesting as you never know what size to try… before it used to be just get something big enough to cover you that was easy to put on and comfy. Comfort was the key… easy was the key… cause I would break a sweat just getting dressed in my size 26 pull on pants after a shower. Now the shimmy involved in getting into the form fitting size 10 jeans is laughable… a nice way to start my day but still…

Would I do it again? Yep. Would I change anything? YEP I would have done it YEARS ago…